I’m officially obsessed. I am on a Nourishing Traditions e-list but truthfully I usually delete the digest. Just have a hard time getting excited about ferments. <g> I saw a few posts about menu planning yesterday which caught my eye. My whole motivation for food lists is to shake up my menu. Alyss from that list definitely did that! She shared her Flickr lunch pages. Who would have guessed lunch could be this much fun?
Alyss sent a link to Laptop Lunches, home of the bento-style lunchbox of the new century. Wow! I remembered seeing bento boxes several years ago when we studied Japan. Those were very ornate however – wood and mother-of-pearl inlaid.They were beautiful but not something I could envision using. These laptop lunch boxes would be the IKEA version of bento. They are a high density plastic with multi-colored little containers that fit perfectly inside the box to store all the foods separately. Lunch never looked this good.
Now I am not normally in to one up-ing the Jones’ but the first thing that came to mind when I saw the Flickr pages was, "MY husband NEEDS one of these!" <g> And it really is more than just showing off. When I saw those little heart shaped cookies and the fanned oranges it occurred to me that lunch could potentially be an opportunity to minister to my husband, much like the early morning wakeup to make breakfast has been. I suspect by midday he could use a morale recharging as well as a physical one. Lunch has always been an afterthought, both the selection and presentation. It is usually slopped into the ubiquitous brown bag or better yet a Walmart bag. You’d need to look inside to know if it was the trash or his lunch. It is nutritious but uninspiring, a totally utilitarian enterprise. Perhaps those days are behind us! If he has to leave here to support us then our support will go with him – in a cheerful bento box. : )
If you have no need to pack a lunch you may still enjoy the Flickr pages a great deal for the menu planning ideas. Lunch around home has suffered from the same lack of variety and attention. We don’t need to pack our lunches but we do have divided trays that could well have the same effect presentation wise. Ok I am off and running here. Now if someone could just get me this excited about my countertop…..
Starry Sky Journal 
Mmmm…just what I needed to read about right before lunch! Maybe I’ll be inspired to do more than typical leftovers today.
I LOVE these, and am going to have to look into ordering some for my girls. Anything to make lunch more fun! We saw the beautiful ornate ones you described when we lived in Guam (usually filled with sushi and such), but I have never seen the American alternative. Very cool!
When my DH used to have a packed lunch I used to print out a daily online cartoon for him to read or something similar. Different things on different days made it more interesting. Ah, young love. š
How funny, I’ve been thinking the same thing since Stef started posting about her dh’s bento box lunches. I’ll have to ask him if he’d like something like this. It is too cute. š
Amy send us Stef’s post link! I am definitely on a lunch tangent!
Wow. Those look really neat. I have been thinking I should do more for dh’s lunch, but I have no idea when… he tends to eat out or bring canned soup most of the time :-(.
I wonder what kind of thing I can put together to make the dc’s lunch AHEAD of time. I can’t spend that much $ on a fancy box though. hmm…any ideas how to finagle something similar?
How cool! I was just thinking last night how I could make Ian’s lunches more appealing. It’s usually leftovers in a stained Tupperware in a Wal-mart bag. Poor Ian. heart-shaped cookies are a good idea, and not hard to make, either!
How do you FIND these things!!! What a great idea…I’m drooling over the beautiful presentations and though I would love to order the little boxes (maybe come Spring!) I think I’ll have to wait. Michael is still trying to recover from my recent foray into cardmaking…but honey, I’ll save money making our own cards even though I just spent $60 at Michaels for cardmaking supplies. smile love, Dani
I love this Kim! You are so right!!!
I am back to say I just ordered the laptop lunch boxes. Thank you for the great tip!